As part of the drive to reduce production costs in the steel industry, certain techniques have been developed for saving energy through the direct hot-rolling of blooms. The research will endeavour to characterize the influence of such techniques on the mechanical properties of a range of products. This involves the laboratory simulation of hot-rolling conditions in the following three cases: - normal production process: variation in the preheating and pre-deformation temperatures; - hot charging: variation in the initial rolling temperature with the different reheating temperatures; - direct rolling: variation in the pre-deformation temperature. The hot strips thus obtained will be cold rolled. The recrystallization phenomena will be examined on the specimens thus worked, and the results obtained applied to large-scale production plant.